take 3: 32MB graphics card test

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from GalCiv2 Forums
This is running on my machine at work, Windows XP Professional version 2002, service pack 2. Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.00GHz, 1.00GB RAM with an amazing 32MB ATI Rage 128 Ultra video card.

Started the game, noticed the text was sitting low on the buttons on the title screen.

Clicked to start new game, noticed there was no spinning galaxy graphic.

Also noticed the Back/Next buttons were only showing the top half of the graphic.

Clicked next all the way through, the loading screen appeared. The robot chick graphic appeared squished vertically and didn't take up the whole box.

Then the game crashed.

I attempted to post this, and somehow failed. No crash log appeared in smart exception. I right clicked the desktop, settings, advanced, adapter, properties, driver, update driver... and it installed a new driver and I rebooted.

I restarted galciv2, stardock and smart exception. Then I noticed there suddenly was a crash log for galciv2.

In the game, I repeated the steps above, and everything was the same as last time. The crash log from smart exception is still there, but clicking "submit exception report" doesn't seem to do anything. So here it is:

......................................

Stardock SmartException Logging Information
-------------------------------------------

OS Version : Windows XP
Video Card : 32MB ATI Rage 128 Ultra
Application Exception code: C5 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Crash Addr: 10008F46 01:00007F46 C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2\Lib3D.dll

Processor Registers (x86):
EAX:00
EBX:00
ECX:046F7DF0
EDX:09
ESI:046F7DF0
EDI:046F7DF0
CS:EIP:001B:10008F46
SS:ESP:0023:0012FA7C EBP:02D179F8
DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003B GS:0000
Flags:00010202


Current Application Call Stack:

Addr Frame Logical addr Module Name
---------------------------------------------
10008F46 02D179F8 0001:00007F46 C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2\Lib3D.dll


Debug information for each stardock app follows ....

......................................

and that's all there is in the file.
6,078 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Without your debug.err I can only make guesses.  Do you have the latest version of your video drivers?  What version of DirectX do you have? Crashing in Lib3D is never a good sign. If you could e-mail in these crash logs with your debug.err file to [email protected], we can take a look at it.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Sorry, I didn' t know about debug.err. I sent it to [email protected].

As for the drivers, this is how I updated them, so I'm guessing I have the latest:

- Right clicked desktop, selected properties
- Selected the Settings tab
- Clicked the Advanced button
- Selected the Adapter tab
- Clicked the Properties button
- Selected the Driver tab
- Clicked Update Driver...
- Windows asked if it could connect to Windows Update, I said Yes
- The software installed and said I needed to reboot
- I rebooted.

The debug.err file says I have DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The driver date that your debug.err is reporting is from 2002, so those are definitely not the latest drivers.

You could try going to the ATI website www.ati.com and see if the drivers available there will work, but I don't think that the ATI Rage 128 Ultra fully supports DirectX 9.0c.  www.omegadrivers.net has 3rd party drivers that often help people.

If you decide to try downloading the newer drivers, uninstall your old ones first and reboot and let Windows install the VGA driver before installing the new drivers.

However, your best bet would be to go to the store or search online for a newer video card. It will extend the life of your PC and you'll notice much better performance in games and video applications.

If you want to stick with ATI, you'll want to get a ATI Radeon 8500 or higher, but I'd recommend going with at least a Radeon 9000. If you'd like to switch to NVidia, you'll want to go with one of the FX series.  The Geforce FX 5500s are very reasonably priced right now.

www.pricewatch.com is a good place to look for video cards, and with the holidays coming up, retail stores will also have good deals.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Heh, this is my work machine. I was specifically testing with it because you guys requested testing for 32MB video cards. I will try to uninstall the drivers, but I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing. I wonder why Windows update wouldn't give the latest drivers?
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, bad news. The driver on ATI's site says something alone the lines of it not being compatible with my card. They only have drivers for the ATI Rage Pro, not the ATI Rage Ultra. Dell had drivers, but after installing them I found that sadly they are the exact same version I have already. Omega Drivers only has drivers for the ATI Radeon.

Looks like that's all I can do for you testing on a 32MB graphics card at the moment. If you guys need me to try anything else, let me know. Unfortunately most computers I've run into come with an ATI Rage something or other if the owner doesn't bother upgrading. I'd really hate for the game to be scaled back just to get running on these cards.